Customer Relationship Management Bachelor Essay

Customer Relationship Management Bachelor - Essay Example This paper seeks to highlight the conditions when a comprehensive CRM program becomes useful even necessary for an organization, what processes and operational aspects should be the focus of this program, its possible risks and benefits, and what is the best CRM model a company experiencing a particular customer relationship problem can adopt. For this purpose, the essay sets a scenario involving a manufacturing firm, which we shall call Company A, whose interaction with customers can stand improvement. With this in mind, one of the company executives presented a blueprint for a CRM program for the consideration of top management. Management was duly impressed and appointed the executive as consultant to study and handle the program's implementation. Two weeks after the consultant's appointment, the Managing Director calls his attention to complaints over the way company operations and employees' behavior fail to promote good customer relations. In effect, the problem is laid at the door of the Operations Manager, who has direct responsibility for company processes and people that affect its dealings with customers. Thus, operations become the main target of the consultant's study to determine how the company can adopt and benefit from CRM. This paper assumes the role of the consultant as it evaluates the problem and proposes a specific CRM plan based on a study of how the company's people, processes and operations can be realigned and managed for them to interact better with customers. 2. The Problem in Perspective CRM is all about systematic gathering and retrieval of customer-related data and is thus associated with the Internet and computers, which skill is not among the criteria used in hiring managers, especially operations managers. Operations managers are usually hired more for their decision-making and people handling abilities than for their computer skills, such that insufficient knowledge of information management restricts their control of overall operations (Boughman, 2003). They may be knowledgeable about the company's processes and people but this does not make for good customer relations if the operations manager has no access to the wealth of information about customers offered by a CRM system. The problem is worse at Company A, where the study found that the operations manager lacks control even over the attitudes of the staff, which as a rule has been described as flippant and rude to customers. There is no open line of communication between the front office and the backroom office. This lack of coordination often results in the gathering of customer records that are either inaccurate or incomplete, while purchase orders often get lost in the shuffle. Missing in customer records are such vital data as names, addresses, purchase histories, service and support contacts. Readily available knowledge about customers and their buying patterns is considered one of the most valuable assets of a business organization. A company without any geographic and demographic